Casualties on both sides are growing as Russia’s conflict in Ukraine continues after more than five months of brutal warfare. Thousands of Ukrainian troops have been injured, but many have told CBS News that they are ready to continue protecting their nation if they can.
Holly Williams, senior international reporter for CBS News, visited a rehabilitation clinic in western Ukraine to assist some of the fighters in their recovery. The troops she met stated they sought America’s assistance in healing so they could return to the war.
Many people lost limbs in the struggle against Russia’s invasion. They are now repairing their bodies and brains.
Captain Danylo Ishchenko of the Ukrainian army chats with CBS News senior international correspondent Holly Williams at a rehabilitation facility in western Ukraine.
“It was a lot of agony, but it was also a lot of shock,” Captain Danylo Ishchenko told CBS News. He said he lost his leg to a Russian mortar amid severe combat last month in and around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second biggest city.
“I am a fighter, and it doesn’t matter if I have an iron leg or a normal leg,” he told Williams. “I intend to fight.”
As part of his rehabilitation, he is already learning to ride horses, and he said that his next objective is to finish a biathalon.
Major Viktor Deineka told CBS News that on February 24, the first day of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of his nation, he lost both of his legs to a Russian rocket.
Major Viktor Deineka told CBS News that on February 24, the first day of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, he lost both of his legs to a Russian rocket.
In the absence of sufficient first aid supplies, he claims to have improvised a tourniquet from his own belt to limit blood loss and maybe save his own life.
He’s been supplied with temporary prostheses, but he recently fell because he was attempting to move too rapidly on them, according to Williams. He giggled when she said that he’d attempted to run before he could walk.
Ukraine’s military heroes are as tough and tenacious as their nation, but many of those Williams and her colleagues visited at the rehab clinic hoped America might help them. They’d want to have access to the high-quality prostheses and world-class rehabilitation that injured American warriors would get.
Captain Ishchenko told CBS News that there’s another reason he’d want to visit the United States.
“I’d want to learn more about drones, specifically fighting drones,” he told Williams.
He wants to be educated by the US military to fly drones so that he may return home and deploy the weapons against Russia.
Ukraine and its people have been wounded, but they are not shattered.